


The End: A Reylo One-Shot

by KCMarsala



Series: Reylo One Shots [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Other, The Dark Side of the Force, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 11:36:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13716870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KCMarsala/pseuds/KCMarsala
Summary: This one-shot was inspired by a challenge one of my readers presented to me after finishing my story, “Conflicted,” about what effect Rey’s actions would have on her unborn twins.So, first, a couple of warnings...





	The End: A Reylo One-Shot

**Author's Note:**

> ***SPOILER WARNING***
> 
> First, this will have some spoilers for my full story, “Conflicted”, which is complete and available here on AO3. I think you’ll definitely get more out of this scene if you’ve already read that story, but I don’t think you’d miss so much that you wouldn’t get anything out of this without it. Some explanations for why these events take place might not make complete sense, but I think you could get enough from what's here that not having read "Conflicted" wouldn’t really present too much of an issue. If you choose to read this without having read “Conflicted” and you find it was just too confusing, please let me know and I will change this warning accordingly.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ***ULTIMATE DARKNESS WARNING*** 
> 
> Second, this is DARK. I mean, VERY DARK. Frankly, everyone dies. So, if you’re not up for that, DON’T READ IT. But if you wanna cry and you’re at all a fan of Reylo (and, hell, if you’re not, why are you here?!), this will do it for you.
> 
> So, if you’re undaunted by these warnings, I present to you, “The End.”

Rey dropped the bottle she was carrying and it shattered against the floor, shards of glass skittering away as she fell to her knees with a cry. Bloodied and terrified, her abdomen contracted hard, her lungs emptying so rapidly that she gasped and wheezed for breath. Her mind spun, horrified by the desperate cry that reached out to her and was suddenly silenced. Tears already streaking her face, she lifted her head, reaching out into the Force in a frantic attempt to understand what had just happened. She would recognize her daughter’s essence in the Force anywhere, but she had never felt it quite like that. And, even more terrifying, she couldn’t feel it at all now.

_Neri?_

There was no response, and Rey’s heart started hammering heavy in her chest, her breathing ragged as more tears drained from her eyes. Still seeking to understand, she reach out to her son, but found his essence hardly recognizable, twisted and wicked, and she shrank back from him in distinct fear.

 _Ben!_ she cried desperately into their bond.

But before she could communicate her urgent need for him to come home, Rey felt her access to the Force withdrawn. Try though she might, she couldn’t reach either her husband or her son.

Fighting the stifling inertia of her fear, Rey forced herself to rise. Ignoring the prickling of glass in her knees and palms, she stumbled her way toward the yard where she’d last sensed her children.

“Paul!” she called frantically, desperate to believe what she had sensed in her son’s mind so briefly was merely a mistake.

But he didn’t answer and she found herself bursting forth into the bright, beautiful sunlight, the peaceful meadow she loved so much spread out before her, stretching away from the idyllic cottage she and Ben had called home for the last ten years. For the first time, the scene failed to greet her with a deep sense of contentment, and all she could concentrate on now was the absence of her family in her mind.

“Paul!” she cried again, her eyes flittering urgently over the field.

Instead of her son, her eyes caught a depression in the knee-high grasses, a barely-noticeable hole in the otherwise uniform blanket of pale green, and she hurried toward it. As she drew close enough to peer into the indentation, her voice raised in a keening cry that echoed the profound misery of her heart. It was Neri, her beautiful daughter, staring sightless up into the sun streaked sky in death. Rushing to her and gathering her little body into her arms, Rey screamed and wept, trying in vain to call upon the Force to return life to her precious daughter. Her hands roamed desperately over her body, seeking any bleeding she could stem or break she could bind, anything to heal her body. But she found nothing. She was in pristine, perfect health, except that she was dead.

 _Mother_ …

Rey’s face lifted sharply at the sound of her son’s voice in her mind. She reached for him through the Force, but still found herself shut out. She couldn’t even press her thoughts into the Force, having to resort to her voice, hoarse and breaking from the abuse of her grief.

“Paul! Where are you?”

Rather than a response, she felt a tug in the direction of the cottage, and she directed her gaze there. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, she turned her attention back to Neri. Blinded by tears, Rey gently closed her daughter’s eyes and placed a shuddering, tender kiss against her forehead. Holding her close, she stood and turned toward the cottage.

_Drop her._

Before Rey could even fully register the command, her body had already obeyed and Neri landed unceremoniously at her feet. Crying out in dismay, Rey found she couldn’t kneel to her or touch her, her feet already taking her in the direction her son’s voice compelled her. Belatedly realizing her body was no longer under her own control, Rey focused ahead, working desperately to manage her rioting emotions so she could face whatever threat had come to mar the perfect peace and utter happiness of the last ten years of her life.

“Paul?” she called as her feet brought her into the confines of the cottage again, but she walked right through to the front without either seeing or hearing him.

Coming out on the other side, Rey squinted into the bright reflection off the lake’s surface and saw a figuring hurrying toward her.

“Ben!” she screamed. “No, don’t—”

Not knowing what hell she had found herself in but knowing without doubt that she didn’t want Ben in it too, she wanted to warn him away, demand that he turn about and leave Naboo as quickly as possible. But not only did she know he wouldn’t abandon his family, but her capacity for speech had suddenly been removed. Her mouth opened and closed silently over and over, like a fish gasping for water, until suddenly a haggard “Go!” escaped her throat. But, by then, Rey saw that he was caught in the same trap as she. Brought to an abrupt halt, she recognized the same terror that possessed her as he realized he lacked the power to maneuver his own body.

“Rey!” he cried. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Paul!” she wailed, her body slumping weakly into the grip that held her upright despite her inability to do so herself.

“What?!" Ben shouted, and Rey recognized the keening despair in her beloved husband’s face as he recognized that both their deepest fears were coming to pass.

Rey shook her head deliriously, sobs wracking her body as her mind frantically attempted to deny what she knew to be true. But she closed her eyes and the image of her dead daughter assaulted her and she cried out her misery to the beautiful blue skies.

“He killed Neri! She’s dead!”

Ben stumbled back, as though her words had hit him physically. Rey didn’t need their bond to know what was going through his mind. Repeatedly over the years, Ben had awaken from horrid nightmares in which he was murdered by his own son. She had comforted him, convincing him it wasn’t a premonition, but merely lingering guilt over his own actions so very, very long ago. But now it was so painfully obvious she had been naive, and he had been remiss in allowing her to convince him against his instinct. What if he had recognized his dreams for the visions they were? Would he have been able to prevent what was happening to their family now? But they had been the most devoted parents, constantly monitoring their children’s development both physically and mentally, attentive to any possible sense of lack or discontentment, and never finding any. Until this very day, both she and Ben had truly and fully believed their family to be the picture of perfect love and harmony for which they had both so longed. And the pain of realizing they had been wrong, that they had missed something, that they had failed their children ripped through Ben with such agony that he wailed his heartache into the earth, the primal sound shattering what was left of Rey’s heart.

 _Get up_.

Rey’s breath caught painfully in her throat as she heard Paul’s voice in her mind. She shook her head desperately, confused since she was yet held fast on her feet in whatever Force held her. But she understood when a second, sharper command elicited a violent flinch from Ben as if he’d been struck physically by the words. Slowly, agonizingly, Ben gained his feet. His eyes met hers and she saw reflected there the profound misery that poisoned her psyche, the utter loss of everything for which he’d striven so long.

_Fight her._

Plunging impossibly low, Rey’s heart skipped and fluttered before commencing a harsh tattoo as she realized Paul was commanding his father to kill his mother. At some point in their history, Rey had been convinced that the man before her would bear her death, but it had been so long ago and they had come so far that the notion she could ever look on him in such a way again had never occurred to her. She saw Ben gaze upon her, his eyes showing the new depths of hell to which his mind had already sunk.

_Fight her!_

“No!” Ben grated out through his clenched jaw, breaking his eye contact with her and hanging his head low to the gravel where he knelt.

Rey felt her hand jerked upward against her will and, an instant later, her dual-bladed lightsaber slapped into her palm, the shining white blades humming instantly to life.

 _Fight her or she will kill you_.

And suddenly Rey understood. Ben was not under Paul’s physical control. Evidently, blocking both their Force abilities and controlling both their bodies was beyond her son's capability, even though Rey was shocked and dismayed to realize a ten-year-old boy could do even half that much. But then another, distinctly _more_ horrifying thought gripped her: that Paul _could_ control his father’s body, but chose not to.

“Ben!” Rey called out in warning as her feet took her striding toward him.

He lifted his head and scrambled to his feet as her first swipe narrowly missed him.

“Don’t you let me do this, Ben!” she cried, knowing he would sooner allow her to kill him than to kill her himself.

To her relief, he finally pulled the lightsaber that never left his side and its familiar, angrily spitting blade sprang to life, and just in time to meet Rey’s second attack. Against her wishes, her body lunged at him, lading blow after blow against him while he fell back and back, only barely defending himself. Wailing and weeping at the horrible familiarity of it all, Rey found herself helpless to combat the hold on her body, unable even to simply open her grip and let her weapon fall from her hands. And when she followed Ben’s parry with a spin that dragged her second blade across his chest, her scream rose louder than his.

“STOP ME, BEN!” she wailed as she felt her attacks intensify, her body evidently immune to the fatigue that now hindered him. “STOP ME _NOW_!”

With a cry of agony, Ben brought his weapon up in a wide arc. At the last instant, Rey closed her eyes and felt the inevitable searing pain rip through her, but not in the way she expected. Opening her eyes just in time to see her lightsaber land in the lake with a horrifying sizzle as the blades seared the surface of the water before failing, Rey pulled her arm against her chest, gripping the charred stump where her hand had been only a moment ago. Falling to her knees, her mind lost in a haze of physical and emotional pain, she found Ben instantly at her side, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight.

“I’m sorry, Rey! I’m sorry!”

Rey pressed her face into his chest, weeping and moaning, unable to determine whether she hurt more in heart or body and unable to imagine how either of them could survive this day. An instinct flared inside Rey, convincing her this might very well be her last moment with Ben, and she looked up at him.

“I love you,” she told him.

But he shook his head. “Don’t you do that,” he moaned, his voice breaking and cracking. “Don’t you give up.”

Rey closed her eyes, more tears escaping beneath the lids, the image of her dead daughter flooding her consciousness. She’d only ever felt so helpless twice in her life. The first time, he’d come to her rescue when he’d severed Snoke’s body in two. The second time, her barely-conceived children had responded to her call, giving her the extra strength she needed in the Force to overcome her bindings and destroy Cerisse. But they were all beyond helping her now. She’d never had the strength to overcome these obstacles on her own, but Ben was caught in the same trap as she, Neri was dead, and Paul… Paul was the cause. So, Ben was right. She _had_ given up, and the only thing left to her was to make sure he knew just how much she cherished every moment she’d had with him.

“I regret nothing,” she whispered, and his face contorted in pain as he drew her close and wept bitterly into her hair.

Suddenly, Rey felt her body gripped again and she was pulled inexorably away. Ben clung to her, but he quickly lost the will to resist, collapsing back to the gravel as unseen hands dragged her back. Suddenly aware of another presence, Rey snapped her face to her left.

“Paul!”

Ben jerked up, bolting to his feet to face his son. Rey noticed the strain of agony in her son’s eyes, and instinct informed her that’s why she had regained control of her body for that brief moment, because he had been overcome by her physical pain at losing her hand. For reasons she couldn’t begin to understand, she and her son were connected physically, and she wondered how far that connection went…

“Paul,” Ben demanded, not entirely able to eradicate the emotional angst from his voice. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking back what should have been mine. What _she_ stole from me.”

Rey stared in open astonishment. Her son had gestured in her direction, but she had no idea what he was on about. She shook her head desperately, and he rounded on her.

“I know!” he cried at her, his precious, youthful face twisted in rage. “I saw. He came to me in a dream, showed me the power that was to be mine had _you_ not stolen it from me! It would have been all mine! I wouldn’t have had to share it with Neri, just like I’ve always had to share everything else!”

Rey felt dizzy as she slowly realized what he was talking about, and she fell limp in her son’s Force grip. Her fearful eyes darted to Ben, but his expression was still clouded in anger and confusion. Forced to speak a name she’d thought never to have to utter again, her already fully shattered heart broke yet again.

“Snoke.”

“NO!” came Paul’s swift and furious response. “Not Snoke! Mor Takhta! An ancient being far more powerful in the Force than that blithering fool or either of you could have ever imagined!”

“It can’t be!” Rey cried. “I destroyed that evil!”

“Yes, you did, Mother, but you used my Force essence to do it. And when you did, I felt it call to me, I felt it show me what could have been mine, what your actions, the actions _I_ enabled, took away from me.”

“But it wouldn’t have been _you_ , Paul!”

“It doesn’t matter!” he shrieked. “It still would have been _mine_!”

And Rey recognized then the madness that gripped him. At times over the years, she’d marveled at the resiliency of her unborn children, to have come to her aid in her confrontation with the evil soul that had possessed both Snoke and Cerisse, to have given her the power and the communion with the Force to extract that soul and condemn it to oblivion. It seemed the gravest of oversights, now, that she had never wondered what cost she might have extracted from her children in using them that way.

“When?” she demanded abruptly of her son. “When did you know of this?”

“Last night. In my dreams, I had a vision. The spirit of Mor Takhta came to me and revealed the truth.”

“It’s not truth, son.”

Both Rey and Paul turned toward Ben, who spoke with fervency.

“Mor Takhta spoke to me through Snoke from my earliest memories,” Ben said, his tone pleading with his son to heed him. “Everything he said… He always knew what I wanted to hear, what he needed to say to convince me I needed him. But it was all a lie, Paul, half truths designed to manipulate me into horrible deeds of _his_ devising, things I _never_ would have done if it weren’t for him. Don’t give into him, son. Be who you are, not who he wants you to be.”

For a moment, it seemed as if Paul might listen to his father, but then his face twisted again and he shouted out his denial.

“No! That’s just who _you_ want me to be! _You’re_ the one manipulating me! And I’m more powerful than you!”

And he was right. Rey had recognized her son’s enormous connection to the Force shortly after he was born. Although Neri was destined to be strong as well, neither she nor either of her parents could anywhere approach what Paul had. For that reason, Rey and Ben had extra diligent all along, monitoring his development in the force and seeing to his every emotional need. Ben in particular had sensed the greater measure of Darkness in his son than in his daughter, but had also sensed that it wasn’t nearly as prominent as it had been in himself. He’d convinced Rey that it was of no particular threat, that simply doing all they could to ensure his emotional balance and health would be sufficient.

When his strength had begun to emerge three years ago, Rey had been tense, worried about what direction it would take him. But Paul had seemed stable, happy, and, slowly, she’d begun to worry less. She’d recognized that puberty would be another pivotal and potentially trying time for him, but he hadn’t reached that yet. While she was inclined to think she hadn’t been attentive enough, she was also dismayed by the power a lost spirit could have over her son after only one dream. Looking at him now, she saw the wildness in his eyes, the hint of a yellow glow deep within them, and she recognized the Dark Side. She knew she had lent Ben the strength to balance his Darkness, an opportunity that Padmé had never managed to fulfill for Anakin. But who could do that for a ten-year-old boy?

“Is that why you killed Neri?” Rey asked on sudden inspiration.

“She was a threat!” Paul declared, confirming Rey’s suspicion. “She would have kept me from achieving everything I’m destined to have!”

“That’s not your destiny!” Ben shouted, his anger rising in response to seeing his own erroneous thoughts of so long ago reflected in his son.

“It was yours! And you were too weak to hold onto it! So _I_ will have it! And nothing, no one, not you or Mother or Neri, will stop me!”

Paul turned away in heated rage, his small body trembling with the magnitude of his unbearable emotions. Rey felt the hold on her body release and she quickly took advantage of her son’s distraction. Reaching instantly for Ben’s mind, she took him with her toward Paul, searching his consciousness and stifling the agony at finding so much Darkness swirling thick and unencumbered throughout his psyche.

 _Is there hope for him?_ she asked Ben desperately, and felt his despair at his inability to immediately answer in the positive.

Knowing Paul would exert control over her again at any moment, Rey quickly communicated the weakness she’d observed in her son, and she felt Ben’s horrified dismay an instant before she was cut off from him. He stared at her, his eyes pleading for another way, and she couldn’t meet his gaze, redirecting out toward the placid, beatific lake as fresh tears obscured the sight. Whimpering at the sound of a lightsaber igniting, Rey furiously blinked the tears away to see Paul advancing slowly on his father, his deep blue blade humming steadily.

“He said you would know what I have to do,” Paul told Ben, his voice harsh, unwavering.

Ben nodded, his jaw set in a grim line as he stood to face the moment he’d feared all of Paul’s life.

“I do, son.”

Rey sobbed, knowing what this moment meant for Ben, knowing he had once stood on the other side of this exchange. Silently, she prayed for Ben to recognize some measure of the conflict he’d faced at this moment, to find some inkling of hope in his son’s eyes. She watched with bated breath as Ben looked, a choked sob escaping as his gaze lowered in despair and she knew exactly how this would end.

“Paul,” she choked out, giving one last, desperate attempt. “Please.”

And when he turned on her with malicious glee alight in his eyes, she felt the same hopelessness she witnessed in Ben’s face. She met her husband’s direct gaze, the man she’d been through so much with and for, and recommitted herself silently to him, to this last act, telling him with utmost conviction that it was what she wanted, what she needed. And, with shuddering breath, she saw him accede to her wishes.

“Goodbye, Father.”

But at the instant that Paul plunged his deep blue blade into his father’s chest, Ben pulled Rey to him and ignited his chaotic red one through hers. Only distantly aware of Paul’s howl of rage and pain as he fell away from them both, Rey collapsed into Ben’s arms, their minds, overcome by agony of the heart and body, uniting one last time. They shared one final vision as they lay dying in each other’s arms, of the final death of the Skywalker line, a concentration of Force sensitivity that had grown too strong to be sustained and that would never occur again.

…

 _I love you, Ben_.

…

_I love you, Rey._

_…_

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't hate me... There's a reason this is here as a one-shot and not part of a complete story arc.
> 
> That said, I anxiously await your thoughts...


End file.
